Question

If you watched the film WIT, please answer these three quetions

1. All of these characters were a part of the film because they served a very specific purpose to the story—medical staff and patient. Were there any scenes or conversations you think really epitomized the true character of the people in this film? (for instance, the “Cancer is Awesome” or the “Popsicle” scenes?)

2. Was this film hard to watch for you? Why? Does that reflect who you are at this point in your life?

3. One movie reviewer said of Wit: “Vivian begins to understand something about life—that it doesn’t matter, in the end, how much you know. Knowledge can’t possibly comfort you in death.” Do you agree with this assessment of the film? Why or why not? Do you agree with this assessment in general about life? Why or why not? What kinds of knowledge, if any, could bring comfort?

4. Did she die a good death? What does “good death” mean to you? What do you think it means to her?

Answer 1

Answer 1.

In the movie ‘ Wit’, the audience is lead into imagining the lives and highly emotional experiences of the cancer patients and the unassuming resilient nature of the hospital staff that caters to them. The characters who play as patients are shown in discomfort and pain and do not understand the major changes in their life as logical or justified. As they come to know what is wrong with them, they go through a range of emotions from fury to despair. Through it all they look to the people around them for support when it becomes too overwhelming. As the protagonist Vivien who had remained a recluse throughout her life comes to struggle with her ovarian cancer, she too is left to evaluate the magnitude of social connections in her life. As a patient of terminal illness, she is represented as showing the same yearning to be looked after by friends and family, but more than this she comes to form a peculiar bond with the people who are caring for her as the patients, the doctors and nurses.

As Vivian drew the conclusion that she has eschewed closeness to other people to a great degree she realised that she had only the hospital staff on whom she can depend and look to for comfort in the final days of her life.
Her parents have passed away. She has no husband and no children. In the movie she is not shown with any friends to whom she is close enough to list them as an emergency contact in the hospital. As such, the movie captures the difficult but real life circumstances of a person struggling with a state of utter loneliness more than merely fighting a severe illness. Vivian's daily communication is mostly with oncologist Dr. Kelekian. He cares about the results of his experiments more than his patients. However, soon an affiliation gets established between the nursing staff because of the everyday encounters between them due to her illness. One poignant scene is a Late night interaction when Vivien talks to Susie (Audra McDonald), her nurse, about her fears about death. They share a popsickle in a precious moment of deep intimacy. Later, as Vivian lies in a near coma, Susie tenderly rubs lotion on her hands which indicates how Small acts of kindness characterize the language of care that gets evolved in the medical institutions.